Wherein this heart, as in a funeral pyre,

Aye burns, yet is consumed not. Years on years

Moaning with memories in thy maddened ears—

Let at thy word, like refluent waves, retire.

Enter thy soul's vast realm as Sovereign Lord,

And, like that angel with the flaming sword,

Wave off life's clinging hands. Then chains will fall

From the poor slave of self's hard tyranny—

And Thou, a ripple rounded by the sea,

In rapture lost be lapped within the All.

[82]

From out the font of being, undefiled,

A life hath been upheaved with struggle and pain;

Safe in her arms a mother holds again

That dearest miracle—a new-born child.

To moans of anguish terrible and wild—

As shrieks the night-wind through an ill-shut pane—

Pure heaven succeeds; and after fiery strain

Victorious woman smiles serenely mild.

Yea, shall she not rejoice, shall not her frame

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